


faith, trust, and pixie dust

by cosimamanning



Series: clone relationships appreciation week [4]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: #LetCharlotteRun2kForever, Bad Parenting, Beth Charlotte Parallel, Canonical Disabled Character, Clone Relationships Appreciation Week, Found Family, Struggles with Disabilities, Yusef the Uber Driver Strikes Again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 17:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosimamanning/pseuds/cosimamanning
Summary: “I want to run, someday, faster than anyone in the whole world.”She doesn’t mention that she knows it’s not possible.





	faith, trust, and pixie dust

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I'd Rather Be Running](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961748) by [captainjaybird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainjaybird/pseuds/captainjaybird). 



> Day FOUR: Fan Works Appreciation. Got a favourite clone/clone-centric fic? A piece of fan art that just blows you away? A fan vid? This is your day to gush! Make your own post and link us to the original post, or find the original post and reblog it with your own comments underneath or in the tags!
> 
> I read [this lil fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961748) and was inspired to write some Charlotte & Beth parallel goodness featuring Charlotte & Cosima and Charlotte & Rachel bc you know I love my girls.

Charlotte has had two mothers, now, and neither of them were very good. 

(She almost had a third, in the form of Rachel, but Susan told her that Rachel Duncan did not a mother make, no matter how many paintings she made, and Charlotte had listened to her.)

(Some days she wishes she hadn’t.)

She’s never had a father, though. 

Art has kind eyes and smiles at her in a way that warms her entire body, makes her feel radiant. He smiles at her like she’s more than she is, ruffles her hair and calls her  _ pipsqueak _ , and around him Charlotte feels safe. 

Maya spends the weekends at his apartments and Charlotte treasures the time with her new sister as much as she treasures her time with her  _ sestras _ , with Kira, and with her ‘cousins’. Maya is a year younger than her and reminds her of Aisha, sometimes, when she laughs, and it hurts but in a good way, a sweet sort of pain, the kind that makes Charlotte smile sadly at the memory. 

She wishes Aisha were here to be a sister, too. 

Art makes pancakes on the weekends with chocolate chips―for Charlotte, who has a bigger sweet tooth than even Cosima―and blueberries―for Maya, she’s the healthier of the two―and fries up a plate of bacon, and it’s so much more  _ homely  _ than any of the chefs that Marion or Susan had. It feels right. 

Maya helps Charlotte braid her hair and Art takes the other side, and neither of them ever say anything about the brace weighing down her leg. It’s just a part of her, to them, and they accept it without question.

Marion called Charlotte a miracle child, but Charlotte still saw her staring at it, sometimes, wondering  _ how _ , where she went wrong. Her clinical gaze stung more than her soothing words could ever heal. 

Susan never made any effort to make Charlotte feel loved, simply told her she needed to be taken care of by someone better suited than her  _ previous caregiver _ , the mere mention of Marion causing her lip to curl with distaste. Susan regarded Charlotte with little more than cool indifference and Charlotte understands why Rachel was less than eager to think her back from the dead. 

Art puts nightlights in the hallways so she doesn’t stumble and his eyes are always kind and free of judgment and Charlotte loves him fiercely for that. 

She’s had two mothers but he’s the first father she’s ever had and she thinks he might be the best, might have ruined the prospect of all other fathers for her forever.

(It’s okay, though, she only needs the one.)

They enroll her in school and she and Kira are in the same class.

They walk side-by-side and Kira never lets anyone say anything rude to her but Charlotte can still feel them staring, sometimes. 

It shouldn’t affect her as much as it does. 

She has seen horrible things, had two mothers, watched islands burn and had friends die, but the whispers of children her age make her eyes sting and her throat tighten, because this is one battle that her sisters cannot fight for her―even if Kira looks like she might try, she  _ is  _ Sarah’s daughter, after all. 

While the other children play, Charlotte reads, but privately,  _ desperately _ , she longs to be with them. 

Kira, ever the loyal friend,  _ cousin _ ―even though she’s technically Charlotte’s biological niece―sits next to her, glaring at the snickering boys who wander too close, and Charlotte loves her just as fiercely as she loves Art. 

“Once,” Charlotte tells her, “at my old school, a group of classmates were playing tag.” Kira blinks at her and listens intently, like she always does, and reaches for Charlotte’s hand wordlessly. 

She always knows when Charlotte needs comforting. 

“They made me  _ it _ ,” Charlotte continues, and to her horror she finds that there are tears already forming at her eyes. She can feel the tightness in her throat, similar to the sickness that is no longer there, and she breathes deeply, trying to keep the rising despair at bay. “I tried so  _ hard _ , but I could never get anywhere, I just kept falling.”

“That’s cruel,” Kira frowns, and for someone who has seen so much evil she tends to forget that people are cruel. She rubs patterns on Charlotte’s hand and Charlotte is reminded of Cosima, who she misses dearly in times like these. 

“I just want to be able to run,” Charlotte tells her, and admitting it feels like a weight lifting off of her chest, because  _ god  _ that’s all she wants, sometimes. 

Aisha wanted to fly and Charlotte thinks that running is like flying, only on the ground. She looks down at the brace on her leg and sees nothing more than a dead weight dragging her down, deeper and deeper into a pit of despair, and her throat tightens further still, because it’s so un _ fair  _ that she be the one tasked with carrying this burden. 

Kira looks at her kindly, fiercely, with the determination that she gets from her mother, her grandmother, gripping Charlotte’s hand tightly in her own. 

“You will,” she promises, and when she says it, Charlotte’s inclined to believe her. 

Some days after school Charlotte and Kira and Maya walk to the upper school to watch the track team, because they have a freedom that Charlotte craves, and Maya and Kira are always there for her when she needs them. Gemma and Oscar would be, too, but they go to a different school. 

The coach smiles at them and passes them granola bars that they munch on happily, and Charlotte’s eyes hungrily observe the runners, the way they move, so gracefully, so unburdened, light and airy and  _ free _ . 

Her legs bounce with the desire to join them, and sometimes the coach spies her, anxious energy and all, and shrugs sympathetically, but not unkindly. A  _ maybe someday _ ,  _ but not today _ . Charlotte purses her lips grimly back at her in response, because she  _ knows _ , more acutely than anyone will ever have to tell her, knows so deeply that it  _ hurts _ , 

Knowing doesn’t stop her from wishing, though, doesn’t stop her from dreaming. 

One day, when they’re at the track, Maya spies a car loitering in the parking lot, making circles, watching them. 

Maya always notices these sorts of things first. She’s the daughter of a detective, after all, and she points it out to the others, who become fearful because they have been through too much to react in any way else. 

Kira calms after a moment, though, smiles, because Kira always knows. 

“It’s Rachel.”

Charlotte hasn’t seen her since the island, since Rachel was still struggling with her words and struggling even more with her heart, painting shaky images with even shakier hands. Kira tells her stories of Rachel and lab rats and friendship bracelets and Charlotte longs to see her. 

“Is she here for me?” Charlotte asks. 

“I think so.”

Charlotte goes to the car. 

Rachel is waiting for her in the backseat. 

She has two eyes, but she feels more comfortable with this one than she did with the last one, the one Charlotte knows she tore out because it was  _ wrong _ . There is a worn friendship bracelet on her wrist, the colors quickly fading, and Charlotte makes a mental note to help Kira make a new one to give to her. 

Rachel smiles at her, an unsteady, unsure sort of thing, and Charlotte thinks she’s been practicing. 

The thought makes her warm. 

“Hello, Charlotte,” Rachel greets, voice velvety smooth as always, “I’ve missed you.” 

Charlotte grins at her, bright and blinding and genuine, because she knows that Rachel is telling the truth. 

Rachel has never lied to her, not once in the time that she’s known her. 

She’s never belittled her or looked at her like a faulty experiment or made her promises that she couldn’t keep, she just treated Charlotte like an equal, like  _ Charlotte _ , and Charlotte loves her for it. 

“I’ve missed you, too.” She hopes that Rachel knows she’s telling the truth, too, because it is. She has missed her, so very much. “Where have you been?” 

Rachel gives her bits and pieces, snapshots of a painting that isn’t quite complete yet. From what Charlotte gathers, she’s testing out the world, trying to see where she fits, where  _ Rachel Duncan  _ was meant to be. She mentions a woman, for a moment, the ghost of a smile on her lips, and Charlotte thinks that must be where she’s getting the practice from. 

Charlotte’s happy for her. 

“What brings you to the high school?” Rachel asks her, and Charlotte looks back in the direction of the track, where Maya and Kira are still faithfully waiting for her return. 

“I like to watch the track team,” Charlotte confides, and it’s something that she never told Marion, never told Susan, but she feels like she can tell Rachel  _ anything _ ,  _ everything _ . She looks morosely down at her leg for a moment, at the brace, and feels the familiar tightness beginning to tug at her throat. “I want to run, someday, faster than anyone in the whole world.”

She doesn’t mention that she knows it’s not possible. 

Rachel, for once, looks caught off-guard and completely stricken, and Charlotte worries that she shouldn’t have said anything, but then Rachel―tentatively, so tentatively, because she’s still not used to trust, to touch―reaches her hand and rests it on Charlotte’s knee, just above her brace, her other hand coming up to cup Charlotte’s face. 

“You are just as strong as any of us,” Rachel tells her, “maybe even stronger.” She breathes shakily, and Charlotte blinks rapidly, a rogue tear escaping and falling down her cheek where Rachel catches it, smooths it away with her thumb. 

“You will find a way,” Rachel promises, with the same ferocity as Kira had, and Charlotte startles at the thought that this is what  _ love  _ feels like, being held, being told that her dreams are possible. “I will see to it myself that you find a way, Charlotte, I promise you that.” Rachel’s good eye looks suspiciously shiny and Charlotte smiles at her. 

“You were supposed to be my mother, you know,” she says, and she finds herself thinking that she wouldn’t mind a third mother, not if her name was Rachel Duncan. Rachel blinks at her, traces her thumb over the smooth expanse of Charlotte’s cheek once more as though holding something precious, and looks very much like she did when Charlotte first met her, choking on her own words; at a loss. 

“There would be no greater gift in the world,” Rachel finally decides on, “than having you as a daughter.” The way she says it implies that Rachel doesn’t think she deserves it, and Charlotte aches for her, because there is a goodness in Rachel that she still doesn’t see, not even after everything is done and she is free to be  _ Rachel _ , however she wants to be. 

They sit in the back of the car for a while longer. Rachel asks about Art, refuses to call him anything except  _ Detective Bell _ , and stubbornly stays away from the topic of any of their  _ sestras _ . 

Charlotte tells her about Kira, though, and Helena’s twins, little Art and little Donnie, though she and the other children have taken to calling them AJ and DJ. Rachel’s lips quirk upwards slightly at the mention of them, almost a smile, but not quite there―she still needs more practice. 

“I’ll speak to Cosima about your leg,” Rachel tells Charlotte before she leaves, and Charlotte hesitates at the door, “you deserve happiness.” 

Looking at Rachel for permission, Charlotte reaches out and hugs her, gently, so not to startle her, resting her head in Rachel’s shoulder. 

Rachel’s arms are limp at her side for a moment before they finally snake around Charlotte, not used to the affection, not used to being loved, and Charlotte hopes that Rachel will begin to understand. 

“You deserve happiness, too,” Charlotte tells her, and Rachel stares at her like Art does sometimes, like she doesn’t believe that there can be so much good in one little girl, and then Charlotte leaves, back to Kira and Maya, and walks home. 

“I saw Rachel today,” she tells Art, and he pauses from where he’s cutting peppers for dinner, knife frozen in his hand. 

“Did you?”

Charlotte hums in agreement, thinking back to it, hoping that Rachel is thinking of her, too. “She’s going to help me run.”

It’s the second part that startles him more than the first, and Charlotte can’t fathom why. 

He disappears into his room and pulls out a framed picture of himself and a familiar woman, a familiar face, the two of them younger and fresh-faced with badges pinned to their chest. 

He tells her about Beth Childs, the older sister that Charlotte never got to know, the sister who was fighting for all of them before she even knew what she was fighting for. She’s beautiful, and willful, and when Art pulls out a video of her finishing a marathon, Charlotte drinks in the images with hungry eyes because Beth Childs is  _ free _ . 

“You remind me of her, sometimes,” he tells her, softly, and Charlotte thinks that’s the highest compliment one might receive from Art Bell. She smiles up at him. 

“I wish I could’ve met her.”

“Me too, pipsqueak,” he agrees, ruffling her hair and kissing her forehead, “me too.”

Charlotte comes back one day, in the middle of winter when the snow is piling high in the Hendrix’s yard and Charlotte and Kira pelt snowballs at Maya and Oscar and Gemma. AJ and DJ are bundled up so tightly in winter clothes that they look less like babies and more like woolen dolls but they giggle loudly and reach for snowflakes in the air, Helena watching them with fond, loving eyes. 

“Hey, Char,” Cosima greets, once the snowball fight has ended and Charlotte’s cheeks and nose are tinged pink from the cold. She hands her a cup of warm cocoa and Charlotte is reminded of the night they spent together on the island, lost and cold, and she lets the steam from the mug warm her and chase the memory away. 

“I missed you,” Charlotte tells her, thinking about the island, of Cosima calling her  _ my sister _ . She’d thought, for a while, that she might stay with her, when everything was over with. She loves Art dearly, but sometimes Charlotte can’t help but wonder. 

Cosima’s expression flickers with guilt, for a moment, because for someone who fears being left above all, she’s done a lot of leaving recently, but Charlotte leans into her side to let her know she’s forgiven, that there’s nothing to forgive. 

“I missed you too, squirt.”

Charlotte fights the urge to roll her eyes, because they all have their nicknames for her. 

Art calls her pipsqueak and Cosima calls her squirt and Sarah calls her midget and Helena calls her  _ baby sestra _ . She’s eight years old, she’s not  _ that  _ little, but she doesn’t mind, it makes her feel like part of a family. 

“So I got an interesting call from Rachel,” Cosima opens, because she’s never been one for subtlety, never been able to hide her intentions, not like Rachel, or Sarah, or even Charlotte. What Cosima says Cosima means, and Charlotte loves her for that. 

“I want to be able to run,” Charlotte tells her, looking down at her brace, and she remembers the boat, remembers  _ and I can’t even swim _ , and from the look in Cosima’s eyes she knows that Cosima’s remembering, too. 

She didn’t think it was possible, but people didn’t think genetic cloning was possible either, but here they all are, in a house together, making a family they hadn’t had before. 

Charlotte dares to let herself hope, just this once, let herself be a dreamer. She’s only eight, she’s allowed. 

Cosima smiles at her fondly. 

“Running? Jeez, you sound an awful lot like―”

“―Beth,” Charlotte finishes, “Art told me I remind him of her, sometimes.”

Cosima looks at her thoughtfully, as though considering something she hadn’t before, and a small smile creeps its way onto her face. 

“You’ve got her spirit, that’s for sure.”

Charlotte preens, and Cosima talks to her about the prospective treatments and therapies, and Charlotte’s mind wanders to running, and freedom, and she thinks about Beth, the sister she never knew, and hopes, wherever she is, she’s running for the both of them. 

One day, Charlotte will be able to catch her. 

**Author's Note:**

> have i mentioned today how much i love charlotte???? and charlotte interacting with kira??????????? because it's like a LOT. so much. love my kids. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! go check out the [work this was inspired by](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1961748) because it hit me real hard in the feels. as always, you can prompt me on my [tumblr](danaryas.tumblr.com) or just scream about the clones with me in general, I don't bite! 
> 
> thanks for reading! much love, xoxo


End file.
